The Artigues process, so called, is, without any doubt, the best to be employed for the reproduction of plans and drawings in lines. It is simple, expeditious, and yields black impressions on a very pure white ground which are absolutely permanent. And this is of the utmost importance when the copies are to be used for military purpose, or kept in archives, such as those of the Patent Office, for example. Should it not require the use of negative clichés, it would certainly supersede any of the processes previously described; moreover, as it will be seen, it can be employed for many other purposes than that of obtaining duplicates from original drawings. The objection is not even very great indeed, for the design can be, without great trouble, transformed into a negative by the aniline method described in the beginning of this work.
The Artigues process is an adaptation for the purposes in question of the carbon process invented by Poitevin. We shall describe it in extenso.
The paper can be prepared with any one of the following solutions:
| 1st. | Dissolve 2½ parts of ammonium bichromate and 5 parts of best gum arabic in 15 parts of water and neutralize with a few drops of concentrated aqueous ammonia; then add 100 parts in volume of whites of egg and a certain quantity of thick India ink, and, this done, beat the whole to a thick froth. In ten or twelve hours the albumen will be deposited and ready for use. The quantity of India ink added to the albumen should be such as the paper be black when coated, but, however, sufficiently transparent for one to see the shadow of objects placed on the back of it, and the coating should not be thick. This is important in order to allow the light acting through the whole thickness of the preparation when the paper is insolated under the cliché, for, if the film be too opaque or too thick (by addition [pg 82] of too much gum arabic), it would be only impressed on its surface, and the image dissolved during the development. The cause of this failure must be explained. Under the action of light the bichromate employed to sensitize the albumen is reduced into chromic oxide which render insoluble this organic substance—or any other, such as caseine, gelatine, gum arabic, etc.; therefore whenever the film is not acted on in its whole thickness, the subjacent part being still soluble, is necessary washed off and with it the superficial impressed part, that is, the image. |
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| 2d. | Take 10 parts of lamp black and work it up in a mortar to the consistency of a thin paste by gradually pouring a little of a solution of from 6 to 8 parts of gum arabic and 1 part of liquid glucose in 100 parts of water, adding afterwards the remainder, into which 2½ parts of ammonium bichromate have been dissolved, and filter through flannel. With this, coat the paper by brushing so as to form a thin and uniform film, and pin it up to dry in the dark. |
These solutions keep well for a certain period. We have kept the albumen, which we prefer to use, for two months in good condition; but the sensitive paper does not for more than three or four days in taking the usual care. It is more practical—and this is recommended—to leave out the bichromate from the preparations, and to coat the paper, in quantity, beforehand, and for use to sensitize it with a solution of potassium bichromate at 3½ per cent. of water applied on the verso with a Buckle brush.[25]
The bichromate solution should be allowed to imbue the paper for about one minute, and having brushed it once more, the paper is pinned up to dry in the dark room. It can also be sensitized from the back by floating, if this manner is found more convenient.
When dry the paper is impressed under a negative cliché of good intensity until the design, well defined in all its details, is [pg 83] visible on the back of the paper, which requires an insolation of about two minutes in clear sunshine, and from eight to ten times longer in the shade. In cloudy weather the exposure to light is necessarily very long.
As explained before, the luminous action, by reducing the chromic salt in presence of certain organic substances, causes the latter to become insoluble; consequently if, on its removal from the printing frame, the proof be soaked in cold water, for, say, ten minutes, and, placing it on a glass plate or a smooth board, gently rubbed with a brush or a soft rag, the parts of the albumen or gum arabic preparation not acted on will dissolve, leaving behind the black image standing out on the white ground of the paper. This done, and when the unreduced bichromate is washed out in two changes of water, the operation is at an end.
As to the theory of this and similar processes, the insolubilization of the bichromate organic substance acted on by light was formerly attributed to the oxidation of the substance by the oxygen evolved during the reduction of the chromic salt into chromic oxide; but from the fact that oxidation generally tends to destroy organic matters, or to increase their solubility, it is more probable that it results from the formation of a peculiar compound of the substance with chromic oxide (J. W. Swan); moreover, gelatine imbued with an alkaline bichromate, then immersed first in a solution of ferrous sulphate and afterwards in hot water, is insolubilized with formation of chromium trioxide, Cr2O7K2+SO4Fe = SO4K2+C2O4Fe+C2O3 (Monckhoven). A similar but inverse action occurs, as shown by Poitevin, when gelatine rendered insoluble by ferric chloride becomes soluble by the transformation, under the influence of light, of the ferric salt into one at the minimum.
The writer has improved the above process by simplifying the modus operandi as follows: